Having decided to take a year and a half off from college, I'm now giving myself a change of scenery and a break from the high-school-college-work paradigm. During this time, the plan is to make peace with the issues I've set upon myself and to generally become a happier, more self-assured human being. I want everything I do to mean something; no more pointless experiences, no matter how much time I spend sitting in bed watching TV and movies on my computer. Everything will count.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Springing forward and landing on my face.

The one good thing about this is that there's a noticeable change in the time the sun sets, which is really nice. I like leaving work at 5 and having it still be completely light out. I can't think of anything else good about this part of Daylight Savings. It's great that people put a positive spin on it by calling it "Spring Forward!" (spring forward, fall back...), but honestly, who wants to get an hour less sleep when they go to bed at the time they normally do? My grandfather has a good way of looking at time changes; whatever time it is, wherever you are, it's that time. Don't think of it as what time it would be IF-- something (if you were home, if it weren't daylight savings, etc.). Of course, that's a lot easier said than done.

Fortunately (at least in this situation it's fortunate), I have the world's strangest sleep cycle, so this is just another little bump in the road for my brain (or whatever it is that makes me sleep so irregularly). I usually stay up very late (midnight is relatively early for me nowadays-- one or two is normal) and I ALWAYS wake up early. I've actually been an early riser for as long as I can remember. I feel like my body has been telling me that it's decided, without consulting me, that it's going to need less sleep from now on, because I have this weird feeling of constant tiredness all of the time, but I can't always sleep when I feel like that. I'll try to lay down for a nap in the middle of the day, and it may or may not work. I never know what determines that.

Numerous times, I've been amazed at how long I can stay up and how little I can sleep in any given night and still be relatively fine in the morning. The other night, I stayed up a great deal later (or earlier, depending on how you see it) than what's usual for me. I fell asleep for about three hours, woke up, and didn't go back to sleep for the rest of the day. I tried napping, but I just ended up reading my book (The Virgin Suicides- great book, great movie- I highly recommend both) and then driving to Santa Monica for the evening.

I've never understood how people could sleep until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Even if I'm tired enough to do that, I'm more than likely wake up sporadically between sunrise and the late afternoon and feel like I'm completely wasting my day. I actually really like staying up late, and I really like waking up early, because I feel like I'm making the most out of my day on both ends. The more time I spend awake, the more time I have to be conscious and in the world (although dreaming is highly enjoyable as well). What I don't like is the unquenchable, persistant feeling of sleepiness throughout my waking hours. Things like caffeine help, but they aren't a 100% cure.

So I guess there are pros and cons to this whole sleep thing. I don't really understand sleep cycles in general. They're all so varied and constantly changing. I'm curious to study why I might be having this bizarre phase right now. I know one thing-- I'll definitely have to readjust for when I'm working on the Wanderbird.

1 comment:

If your goal is to get up and see the sunrise, "spring forward" is awesome - because sunrise becomes an hour later by our human clocks. So - for a sunrise watcher, spring forward "gives you an extra hour," somehow.